


Operation: Catacombs

by ksoimaqueso



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: slightly old work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25183831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ksoimaqueso/pseuds/ksoimaqueso
Summary: a little fanfic i made for school (inspired by tdc:aor)
Relationships: Deet & Rian (Dark Crystal), Deet/Rian (Dark Crystal)
Kudos: 7





	Operation: Catacombs

That Shard! That Damned precious Shard!

With the faint whisper of light reflected off of the valuable rock’s surface, like a siren’s voice amongst a stormy sea, it seemed to bury itself into the cavernous black- gone.

The second a small splash emerged from the mouth of the beast- the backs of my eyes stung, my head now registering a cool liquid upon it, the sweat on my palms becoming even more prominent, I felt repulsed, not only at the thought of having to go into skeksis territory once again, but at myself.

Water reverberated to my ears, placing a spotlight on the fate of the crystal if we did not retrieve it, the Moon was no use and the sun would have been too late, everyone would sooner or later be drained, never to return to the soil, I needed help if I could ever even dream of obtaining the crystal, our lives, again: I’d need help.

It would be too dangerous for her though… but even greater danger if we didn’t try.

My throat had already been ravaged, ripped to slivers of its previous form by the sobs which wracked my body. The scream resembling a name cracked and almost garbled.

‘’Deet! Where are you?’’ the flutter of wings made the words die in my throat, as I lept back into an unintentionally defensive stance, arm outstretched with my brown knuckles just inches from a midnight Iris. The pale green Gelfling darted behind her previous position, stopped short, yelped- and bounded back to where my hand once hovered.

‘’You call me and scare the life out of me- what- hey, have you been crying?’’

In came a small lacuna until the Grotten-born female in front of me had wiped away the salty trails and hugged me softly. her tousled, thousand-strands-of-platinum restricting my vision of the cave, which beckoned me to follow my mistake with it’s dark- almost endless looking mouth. 

‘’The crystal, I’ve dropped it… I couldn’t make the jump, and now it’s in the middle of a bloody-’’ her arms quickly retracted, to make way to attach themselves to my shoulders, grey thumbnails pressing underneath my collarbones and stretching my shirt out, towards her wrist with a faint squeak of leather.

‘’Stop! Stop beating yourself up about this! Let’s think, it’s not too far down that you’ll never find it, you’ve got me!’’ Her eyes crinkle upwards at the edges, cheekbones raising and off whites on display.

‘’See? we can get through this.’’, her arms outstretched as she took a step backwards before removing her touch from me altogether. 

She didn’t get it! There were Skeksis down there! If we got caught, if one of the vulture’s hands laid upon us we would have been killed! Or worse, taken for essence,

‘’Deet! Newsflash, you could be killed-’’

‘’And that’s why you’re coming with me, silly- now grab what we need.’’

Sword; check, dirtbombs; check, Shard…

In the devil’s den.

A place where a risk was necessary.

Deet tapped my back, a signal to prepare for liftoff. My body tensed at the pull of fabric running along my bicep, forcing my collar uncomfortably into my neck- my ribs also being constricted by the tug, with the floor slowly vanishing beneath my leather soles as arms adjusted themselves around my torso, and we descended into the underworld esque crevice prohibited to all Gelfling,

the catacombs.

Drip…

Drip…

Drip…

The sound of rank liquid, the stench delivering a huge warning to my senses, stinging my sinuses with a call to ‘hurry up!’, ‘get out while you can!’ The grim amber surfaced it’s chilling glow through the fissure in the stones, down further and further…

‘’See anything?’’ Her whisper reached my ear from all angles, every rock rejecting to absorb her small voice.

‘’Nothing yet’’. My eyes sweep the distorted floors before perching on a gorgeous glint blanketed by the pool of melancholy liquid,

‘’The Shard- over there quickly, Deet!’’ I sotto voce’d, we had to leave fast. With the request, we descended further, a midnight pool growing closer and closer, I stretch my hand out and-

“GELFLING!”

Thud!

Deet’s fragile frame crashed on top of mine, with a startled wheeze drawing from her lips,echoing across each stone in the vicinity. My eyes grew wide, and my head seemed to fill with the fire that started to burn into my stomach: lungs clogged with the smoke which stifled my breathing- clutching it in dreads clasp and rendering them redundant of any purpose- my fingers froze on my hands- sweat gathered profusely-

The vulture-like figure was too far away from my sword but not too far away for…!

Wait where are they- ‘’Take this!’’

a brown explosion wrought the place, shaking rocks, growing akin to the sound of a war-zone, dirtbombs.

Before I can even register a thank you, slender arms return to my sides, the glacial Shard still shivering in my palm, it’s celestial beauty wrestling with the light to twinkle like pure fairy dust on my brown palm. Skekmal bellowed incoherently, his rotund figure erupting his furor with every shake of his colossal garments and bloated stomach. The ashy, skeletal hand swinging his weapon in vain- with the now familiar tug to my tunic, his form slowly grew further and further away.

Victory was in our crosshairs now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in march so i have improved since then! Hope you found this (somewhat) entertaining.


End file.
